1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the application of designs to anodised aluminum strip by a printing technique.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Anodised aluminum strip is widely used as decorative trim in consumer durables such as motor vehicles, radio and television sets, for architectural and interior decoration and similar purposes and such uses take advantage of the receptivity of the anodic oxide surface for conventional printing inks.
Aluminum strip can be decorated continuously (i.e. in coil form) by dipping the strip into dye baths, using resists and successive dye baths to obtain multi-colour effects, or by direct printing onto the aluminum surface. However such processes are not easy to control and high quality multi-colour decoration is difficult to achieve. A process has also been proposed for decorating aluminum sheet in U.K. Pat No. 1,052,625 in which a design is transferred from a temporary carrier sheet but such technique is only applicable to the printing of individual sheets of aluminum and the process has not been adopted commercially.
A process which enabled a design to be applied continuously to an anodised aluminum strip would be highly desirable since it would greatly increase the potential printing speed and, because of the larger areas of decorative aluminum sheet of various designs which could be produced, would greatly extend the range of uses to which the material could be put.